Robert Boyle, an Anglo-Irish natural philosopher, chemist, and physicist, was an early pioneer in applying the scientific method.
Biographical Overview
Born in Ireland, 1627-1691
Chemist, regarded as the first modern chemist
Founder of Boyle’s Law
Fellow of The Royal Society
Worldview
Using a biblical worldview perspective, Boyle successfully applied the scientific method to investigate the laws of nature, His worldview is notable from what he said –
“In the Bible the ignorant may learn all requisite knowledge, and the most knowing may learn to discern their ignorance.”
“When with bold telescopes I survey the old and newly discovered stars and planets when with excellent microscopes I discern the unimitable subtility of nature’s curious workmanship; and when, in a word, by the help of anatomical knives, and the light of chemical furnaces, I study the book of nature I find myself oftentimes reduced to exclaim with the Psalmist, ‘How manifold are Thy works, O Lord! In wisdom hast Thou made them all’”
“The study of the Books of Nature is one of the Ends of the Institution of the Sabbath.”
“Tis [nature] like a rare Clock, all things are so skillfully contriv’d, that the Engine being once set a Moving, all things proceed according to the Artificer’s first design.”
“If an Indian or Chinois [Chinese] should have found a Watch cast on shore in some Trunke or Casket of some shipwrackt European vessel; by observing the motions and figure of it, he would quickly conclude that ‘twas made by some intelligent and skillful Being.”
